


kübler-ross (for love)

by extremiss



Category: Tsuritama
Genre: 5+1, Character Study, Introspection, M/M, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 09:44:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2846528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extremiss/pseuds/extremiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>yuki finally puts a name to the feeling in his chest when haru finally disappears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kübler-ross (for love)

**Author's Note:**

> so i watched tsuritama in one sitting and I JUST. felt the need to do this whole word vomit thing
> 
> sorry for the lack of capitalization and stuff aaaa

i. denial

at first, haru is nothing but an inconvenience. he's the obnoxious noise that trails after him like chimes to an opening door— except it's not calming. no, it's loud and it disturbs people—kind of like fireworks, in its volume and brightness.   
  
haru is also that eccentric presence glued to his hip that makes everyone turn their attention to yuki. (it's all unwanted attention, although, because yuki tenses and sputters every time.)  
  
he's not sure when the annoyance dies down into something else akin to—but not really—comfort.  
  
all he knows is that it should have become a peaceful affair by then. yuki could have continued on, the weight knotted onto his back untied and loose and free, finally, because haru is no longer the source of his anxiety, but something close to a ray of sunshine, he supposes. (but less sappy.)  
  
he notices that haru's laughs, antics and outright ridiculousness makes him feel lighter, kind of like he's floating, and haru's joining him mid-air. there's always this irritatingly persistent fluttering in his stomach, and maybe he wants to puke at how happy he actually feels now, but haru's smiles will always make him force down the lump down his throat and bite his tongue until he tastes something metallic and salty.  
  
he notices, too, that his days aren't complete when haru isn't around anymore. somehow, the self-proclaimed alien had become an extension to himself.   
  
he learns this the hard way.  
  
he barely makes it when haru is gone momentarily, and he uses the time he has alone to drown in confusion. there are warning signals all over the place—metaphorical neon lights that flash behind his eyelids, spelling it out for him in bright red and yellow.  
  
he pays no mind to them, only clutches onto his chest, wondering why it hurts so much even though deep inside of him, he should have known exactly why.  
  
he isn't ashamed to let the relief surface in his words and actions when haru finally returns to him; reachable, tangible.   
  
the relief underlies something else, too, he knows this. he just brushes it off, along with the rumbling trapped beneath his ribs.  
  
because whatever it is, if it's even _anything_ at all,   
  
it's not real.

* * *

ii. anger

natsuki usami is no fool, everyone probably knows this as fact— but if you still think you could get away with hiding something, you're wrong. if it's anything about something other than himself or his family, he probably already knows.  
  
"you're weird lately." he comments on the situation at hand nonchalantly, hands steady on his fishing rod. he feels a tug reverberate throughout the wood and onto his fingertips and his palm, keeps the pad of his index finger hovering over nylon as he reels it in quickly.  
  
yuki probably didn't hear; he's too busy staring at the water with a scary expression, looking like he wants to boil the sea or something.  
  
"you'll scare away the fish with that face of yours and you won't catch anything," says natsuki.  
  
"what?" yuki whips his head toward natsuki, startled out of his rumination.  
  
"you're mad about something?" natsuki asks instead, ever straight to the point.  
  
"no," replies the redhead, matched with a hesitant shake of the head.  
  
natsuki hums, though it clearly isn't convincing because yuki is compelled to reassure him that really, he's fine, he's doing well and how do you catch this and that type of fish again? he totally forgot. natsuki chooses this moment of all moments (bad decisioning on his part) to ask about a certain someone. a certain someone who is also missing for a certain reason.  
  
the space between them that was supposedly filled by him is empty, despite akira standing with them, fishing rod in hand. he's off playing soccer, or whatever, natsuki's not really sure because he doesn't think haru's particularly serious about it.  
  
"is this about haru?"  
  
"WHAT?" yuki borderline screeches. _bullseye_ , natsuki thinks. "no, no it's not about haru or anything. i mean—he can do whatever he wants."  
  
"you should talk to him." the brunette offers, and yuki is about to concede weakly since he's not especially stubborn, but there's this irrational anger that builds up within him. not at natsuki, but maybe more at himself, or haru, because those two are really all he has to blame for all this confusion.  
  
"fine, maybe i am mad. but i don't care what he does, okay? it's his fault. he just keeps doing whatever he wants to do and he never thinks about everyone else." yuki grits out, knuckles turning white as a result of his far too tight grip on his rod.  
  
natsuki knits his eyebrows in concern, like how he usually does for sakura when she's sad or bothered. the thing is, yuki isn't particularly bothered or anything, though he does suppose he's taking the anger too far, and it might even be misplaced to begin with. "you've never been this put off by his behavior before." natsuki gently says.  
  
"i've had enough." yuki merely says, but a part of him is nagging at him, telling him he doesn't mean it all. if anything, it's an aftereffect of the hurt and endless befuddlement; a defense mechanism of sorts.   
  
natsuki opens his mouth to say something.  
  
"i'm not gonna talk to him." yuki says with an air of finality.  
  
and that was that.

* * *

iii. bargaining

yuki doesn't usually go outside. when he does, it's always with haru. always. today's no different. he had slipped on his freshly laundered hoodie and chased after an overly-excited haru only to have himself wait by the bay, as haru goes to get ice cream for them both.   
  
so he's left alone, almost, except akira has a knack of always appearing out of nowhere. true to typical akira fashion, he materializes beside yuki suddenly. but yuki has been with him enough times not to be fazed.  
  
"you're not fishing today?" akira asks, with the same deep, mature voice, and the same white duck in his arms. 'tapioca', he named it.  
  
"maybe later. with natsuki." yuki answers, casually. he might have telepathically added, _you can come with, if you want_ , but akira never needed an invitation. he's always a couple of meters away from them three, for some reason.  
  
"where is the alie—haru?"   
  
yuki doesn't even notice his slip-up. akira thanks the gods for this clueless boy.  
  
yet yuki stiffens, and akira has an inkling of the reason behind the shift in mood. "getting ice cream." the redhead tries to play it off with a shrug for good measure.  
  
akira looks at him weirdly—only looks at him—and it's enough to break yuki. he doesn't need to ask _why are you being so weird?_ or _what's going on with you and haru?_ because yuki probably has to let the feelings or out some time and akira is the lucky one who happens to be there at the right time.  
  
it's only a bonus that yuki strangely trusts akira.  
  
"i keep thinking that if i do something, it might go away." he begins, vaguely. he thinks it sounds sort of pretentious contextless, and he doesn't expect akira to understand what he means— but maybe that would turn into a good opportunity to wrangle himself out of this one with an excuse.   
  
akira _does_ get what he means, though. "like an exchange?"  
  
yuki ponders over it. "kind of," he says, "but not really."  
  
he'll admit to feeling helpless, in a way. this untitled emotion has rendered him useless. he needs to gain control over it somehow, or appease it, and he peculiarly thinks offering things to whatever superior being up there can finally lift this burden off of his shoulders.  
  
"like maybe if i just be a little bit more patient today and let him do those weird things again, maybe the sky will smile from above me and make it stop." he explains further. _or at least dissolve all the confusion_ , he thinks.  
  
"it?" akira questions.  
  
yuki sighs. "yeah, i don't know either."  
  
in silence, he makes several promises. he promises to ace his upcoming exam, to catch more tuna, to finish his chores early—he could even eat ennoshima bowls for the rest of his life just _please_.  
  
please tell him _what_ this feeling is.

* * *

iv. depression

when he lies on his bed sometimes, he likes to wonder how much of what haru says he actually means.  
  
like does he mean 'i like yuki' in the simplest, most innocent way? or does the phrase mean something else, something that might resemble reciprocation?  
  
yuki thinks about it far too often.   
  
he relives the brush of their fingers, the feel of haru's breath on his cheek, the warmth of haru's body pressed against his.  
  
where it used to fill him with a sense of illogical joy, it now makes his chest clench.  
  
he never once considered that haru couldn't mean exactly what he says; always thought that haru was vague, yes, but as straightforward and honest as ever. he didn't take into account the possibility of haru only being naturally clingy to everybody.

suddenly, yuki feels like he is stripped of what makes him special to haru. he understands that haru is special to him, in ways he both knows and doesn't, but the sliver of a possibility of him being nothing to haru—it's unbearable.  
  
"why does it hurt? is it supposed to?" he asks, voice coming above a whisper.  
  
he doesn't look at kate, who sits across him, but kate smiles at him, like she always does. it instantly makes yuki feel a little bit better.  
  
"it's normal. not everything will make you feel happy forever." she explains, slightly wrinkled hands gripping to spray water onto to the group of flowers she and haru always tend to. "that's how you know the feeling is real and raw, yuki."   
  
yuki doesn't find this the least bit fair, but he doesn't say more. he waits for kate to finish.  
  
"it may hurt quite a bit, but you have to wear the pain like battle-scars. it's what makes it worth it."  
  
he nods slowly, letting the words sink in—lets them seep from under his flesh and into his bloodstream. he allows kate's advice to ring through the hallways of his mind so that by the time he's curled up on his bed, thin fleece blanket draped over his body, he gradually feels less and less sad.  
  
yuki contemplates ripping off his sleeves, and maybe ripping down his collar too, because haru has burnt imprints of his hand on yuki's arms, and has squeezed yuki's heart dry.  
  
admist this train of thought, yuki is firm in his delusion.  
  
he's dense as ever, and perhaps he's always preferred it that way. he still falls asleep all the same, with haru's amethyst eyes as his last thought.

* * *

v. acceptance

the boat is rocking back and forth violently, and yuki momentarily amazes himself by the fact that he's still standing upright. the wind is strong, slapping against them angrily, reducing them into mere ragdolls.   
  
the harsh air sends the biggest waves to push over their boat— akira is struggling to keep the boat running in a straight line, but with the unceasing downfall of thousands of rapid raindrops, it might just be impossible.  
  
they could die, probably.  
  
the boat could be swallowed by the water and they'd never be seen ever again—just another casualty due to the bermuda syndrome.  
  
actually, they could die, _definitely_.  
  
yuki isn't scared for that, though.  
  
he hears haru's weak apologies and goodbyes above the loud splashing of water and he _wishes_ he doesn't hear, wishes that haru wasn't going to do what he was going to do. natsuki is yelling at him, but haru doesn't look like he's listening to him at all.  
  
yuki's hands are balled up at his sides, trembling. his eyes are cast down, though he's not sure if he's crying or not—maybe he is, or maybe it's just the rain running down the sides of his cheeks. he doesn't know; he doesn't care right now.  
  
all he cares about—  
  
all he's thinking about is that—  
  
he can't lose haru.  
  
he can't let him die. he can't let him go back home.  
  
he can't lose haru in any way.  
  
haru was the flower he helped grow, and here he is, soaked to the bone, weak, and about to slip from his fingers. he can't let that happen—he _can't_ let him—  
  
"i won't let you wither." he mumbles, making both haru and natsuki pause their fired exchange.  
  
"i won't let you wither." yuki repeats, and with each repetition—with each shift in haru's illegally melancholic expression—yuki's head starts to clear.  
  
"i won't let you wither!" he yells into the typhoon. haru looks taken aback, if just a little bit. his eyes don't look like his own eyes with how blank they seem, but they're recovering. in them, yuki could almost see his reflection.  
  
he finally knows what he feels.  
  
thinking of being with haru,  
  
thinking of being without him,  
  
it made him realize—  
  
_i love you_ —  
  
he doesn't tell him out loud. he hopes actions are enough, and if they're not—well, at least they all came out alive.  
  
throughout the entire thing, throughout the whole adventure that feels like they went to hell and back, his grip onto haru still falters.   
  
it ends, prosperous, and everyone is happy.   
  
he guesses he has a lot to be happy for, too. he just laments that he realized just exactly what he felt for haru—that the most distinct sense of clarity he'd ever possessed—was when he is standing on that boat, watching haru fly away and fade into the sky.  
  
he can't say he regretted anything.  
  
it's a bittersweet feeling, really.  
  
but he's glad haru appeared in his life at all.

* * *

+1  
  
it's been months since then.  
  
ayumi and misaki had gotten married, tamotsu continued running his shop with sakura and his girlfriend. akira's fishing someplace peaceful by the ocean, natsuki pursuing his fishing dreams.  
  
as for haru—  
  
well, yuki isn't sure how he's doing. hopefully he's happy, because despite all that yuki feels, yuki finds that he, for the first time, is happy. he's content. he's not lonely.  
  
though he could confess that there's something about haru that leaves him mystified, despite him not being physically there. he thinks distantly, that he's still under some sort of spell haru had casted upon him.  
  
he can't help but miss him sometimes. he can't help but yearn for that same alien-fish by his side.  
  
haru had come into his life, stormed through the doors with the brightest grin, and left with the same smile. even if yuki had wanted to, he could never properly tell him how he felt.  
  
he'll never get to say it now, and that is the lone thing he will ever regret. the memories he now has in his heart are enough to last him a lifetime, and he promises he'll make more of them.  
  
he's pulled out of his reverie when the teacher announces that the class was going to have new classmates— one of them had been the 'monster' yuki previously apprehended, so when he finds out who the second one was, he doesn't get too surprised.  
  
the students stand, pointing to haru and declaring, "alien!" in unison, and he sheepishly laughs along with them. across the crowd, haru tries to find yuki. when he does, his cheeks are pink, eyes scrunched up into crescents because of that same wide smile.  
  
yuki's heart still skips a beat, even after all this time.  
  
(maybe haru knew all along.)


End file.
